The Second Library
by mizzshy
Summary: Things at Ouran Academy are not as they seem. Things have been going missing and now people are starting to disappear too. But where to? And will the Host Club find out what's going on before something really dreadful happens? Rating may change.
1. Specimen 32

**Chapter 1:**

**Specimen 32**

**Author's notes:**

Right... Hope you like this! This whole fic is going to be multi-chaptered and it was all inspired by a dream I had... And it's kind of developed a lot since I first had the idea. I know generally what's going to happen... Actually I think I wrote out a plan for it all and now can't find it anywhere... Clever me... n.n;

_On the subject of other fics I am writing_: I really haven't given up on any just yet. I'm still writing for some of them, and others I'm still typing. My excuse: school. Upper sixth is a bitch, if you'll forgive my use of language here. I'm applying to university and had to put together a creative writing portfolio, I've got massive amounts of deadlines and I have mock exams in January. But I'm not giving up on ffnet. I love ffnet too much to give up on it. So I will be updating other fics as soon as I get some time. I've had this fic hanging about on my computer for a while and thought I'd better get it up.

Warnings: Violence, gore, weird stuff, character deaths, possible (though not entirely probable) sexual scenes in later chapters, possible swearing.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran.

---

"Really it's okay," Emi said, pausing so that her friend stopped too and they stood in the deserted corridor. "I can get a book out of the library on my own, surely! It'll only take five minutes."

Naoko rolled her eyes. "Fine," she eventually sighed. "But if you spend too long in there again..."

"... you'll drag me to volleyball after school instead of going to see the host club, I know." Emi smiled. "I'll meet you at the fountain in ten minutes."

Naoko nodded and wandered off with a swish of yellow skirts and a flick of her jaw-length black hair. Emi turned the other way and walked down the corridor towards the second library.

It was silent as she pushed open the door and walked in, and there was no sign of anyone else around. She reasoned that the librarian must be elsewhere for the time being. Well, she'd just find her book and check it out herself if need be. She drifted through the rows of shelves, running her hands over the spines of the books as she went. Eventually finding the right volume- Descartes' _Meditations on First Philosophy_- she took it off the shelf and stepped out of the row to head towards the library desk...

Only to find that the way was pitch black. She turned her head this way and that- more darkness; all around appeared to have disappeared. It seemed as though someone had turned off the lights and now the darkness was pressing on her eyes. _How strange_, she thought as she felt her heart hammering in her chest. She did not like the dark. And she needed to find Naoko.

Tentatively, she moved forward, out into the open space, one hand out in front of her for safety. Her eyes were adjusting to the almost complete darkness, gathering what little light there was present and trying to use it to show her the way. She could make out vague shapes and in the darkness they looked frightening and imposing. She could not even recognise the library in them at all.

"_Who's there?"_

The voice was barely above a whisper, but in the ominous silence it seemed to echo and ring in Emi's ears. It jumped down her back and made her shiver, letting out an involuntary gasp. The book was still clutched in her hands and her knuckles turned white on it as the cold voice sounded again, louder this time.

"_Who is there?"_

Her breath shook with nerves and she came to a standstill, unanswering and terrified. Another voice, deeper, joined the first.

"_Who is it? Show yourself!"_

Emi let out more gasps, hyperventilating in panic. She didn't know what to do- where was she? This could not be the second library... Surely...

"_Who's there?"_ The first voice was angry now.

"_We will make you show yourself!"_ The second even more so.

She let out a strangled crying noise and ran in any random direction, anything to get away. She prayed to find the door, to not hit anything, to find the way out of this horrible, horrible nightmare. Her foot caught something and she fell onto her front, sprawled. Cold floor tiles, just like at Ouran only covered in dust, pressed against her as she heard footsteps coming towards her. By now, Emi was sobbing in fear and shaking from her head to her toes.

Rolling onto her back and sitting up, she coughed dust from her lungs and felt her fingers close around the book still in her hands. It was the only thing she knew, the only thing that was real, and she needed to clutch it to her, and pray that she was imagining things or dreaming or anything other than this being real. The footsteps were slowing, right above her by this time, and she heard the first, cold voice say to the other, _"Who is this? It's not like the others. So different."_

Emi raised her head, trying to see their faces but saw darkness and nothing else. She held down a sob and the other replied, _"It does not belong."_

She held her breath, wondering what to do. She couldn't get up and run... And where on earth was Naoko? She'd be getting angry... Emi held the _Meditations_ to her chest and the first voice asked, _"What should we do with it?"_

She felt like ice was running down her back in the utter silence that followed.

Then, suddenly there was a whack to her face with something metallic and she fell back onto the floor on her back. She felt, rather than saw, one of the figures move to stand over her.

"_Specimen 32."_

There was a moment where Emi lay there in the dark, confused beyond belief.

Then she felt red-hot pain tear through her. A boilingly painful blade had been stabbed through her stomach and she screamed in agony. Not that anyone heard her. She could only writhe and scream as the pain raced through her veins and her life trickled away with every successive stab of the blade.

A crack rent the air and she screamed more, sobbing with the pain of a broken rib.

After what seemed like forever, the stabbing stopped and Emi finally gave in.

---

"Kaoru, I want to go outside!" Hikaru complained, throwing himself onto the sofa beside his twin and looking grouchy. "It's really sunny..."

"In a second, Hikaru," Kaoru replied, turning a page of the newspaper he was reading. "I just want to finish reading this."

Automatically, one arm circled Hikaru's shoulders and he was placated for the remaining few minutes that it took for Kaoru to finish reading. Once Kaoru was done, he allowed himself to be dragged outside, laughing with Hikaru and trying not to feel troubled about what he'd just read.

A maid entered the room, rearranging the flowers in the vases and picking up the paper from where Kaoru had been forced to drop it. She tutted at the title, only half-concerned, and left the paper on the table.

The headline read:

_**Schoolgirl, 16, missing in suspected kidnapping.**_


	2. The Next Victim

**Chapter 2:**

**The Next Victim**

**Author's notes:**

I finally updated! Yes, I am alive and thanks to some recent reviews have actually had the motivation to get this thing written and up! I even finished chapter three of Haunted too, so I can get that up once I have typed it up.

This chapter... It's still weird. No one knows what's going on except me (hopefully!) and I hope I can keep it consistent. I keep changing my mind about things but I won't go into that here. I'm still planning the ending. xD

Aaaanyway, I hope you like this. I know I've been keeping some people waiting for a while on this, so I hope I deliver okay with this. n.n;

Warnings: Violence, gore, weird stuff, character deaths, possible (though not entirely probable) sexual scenes in later chapters, possible swearing.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran.

---

Ouran High School was in a state of strange suspense.

Emi Yamamoto's disappearance had been unexpected – who would have expected it? – and assumed to be a kidnapping, a way to get a ransom out of her parents. Her father was head of a company which produced fine fabrics, ones which were, in fact, bought and used by the Hitachiin fashion company. Mr Yamamoto had even made custom designs specifically for them.

In short, Yamamoto was not short of money and was willing to pay almost anything for the safe return of his daughter. He and his wife made tearful appeals to the kidnapper on television, even though it was still not clear that it had, in fact, been a kidnapping.

"Please," they implored the indifferent camera before them. "Please return Emi to us. Just name your terms."

Her best friend, Naoko Minami, was beside herself. In school she was entirely despondent, crying often and blaming herself for what had happened.

"If I had just stayed with her," she would repeat to herself and anyone in the vicinity. "If I had just stayed with her I could have protected her. But now she's gone..."

She stayed the same right up to the point when her parents took her out of school on the advice of their doctor. Naoko, they said, needed to rest.

Emi had been a kind and reasonably popular girl in class 2-A and none of the students in the entire school knew what to do. Everyone felt some degree of concern for the girl's well-being in some way or another. Some students were less concerned – per se – and more frustrated that the kidnapper was not coming forward and admitting to having taken Emi. Sure, they wanted a bit of drama as much as the next person, but surely three weeks was too long a time to go without saying or doing anything? And if her life was really in danger then that removed a lot of the glamour from the case...

Many students were scared. What if the kidnapper came back? What if they were next on the hit list? What if the kidnapper turned murderer on Emi?

No one knew that the 'kidnapper' did not exist as anything other than a figment of their collective paranoid imagination. No one knew that Emi lay dead in the dark, along but for those strange voices. No one knew that her blood had been spilled and splattered or her body broken. No one could ever have guessed.

Out of all the members of the host club, Tamaki was probably most affected. That was, however, to be expected. He _was_ prone to the over-emotional and Emi _had_ been in his and Kyouya's class. Of course Tamaki would feel worst about it all. The blonde was less melodramatic about this matter than might be expected though. He was always oddly muted when he brought the matter up, which he did occasionally. He would wonder aloud if Emi was okay, hope that she was. The other hosts never said much in reply and he never brought it up in front of the patrons. During host club hours the group would try to take their customers' minds off such unpleasant things and create a safe haven for them, away from it all.

Still, the hours they spent open each day were subdued affairs, with the girls worrying all the time. Even Hikaru and Kaoru's new 'brotherly love' material was not good enough a distraction for anyone. Emi had been a fairly regular customer of both Haruhi and Hunny and her absence was oddly noticeable. Maybe because they knew that she had not merely jetted off to Rome for the weekend.

A month after Emi had disappeared without a trace the host club were all gathered in the third music room after that day's session. Hikaru flopped down onto a loveseat, Kaoru sitting beside him just after, and yawned.

"I wonder if Kaoru and I should even bother trying any more," he announced to the room at large.

"Why do you say that?" asked Haruhi, perched on the arm of the couch Tamaki and Kyouya occupied.

Hikaru waved a hand. "The customers aren't paying attention," he explained. "The best we get these days is polite applause. I could do a striptease and no one would notice, ne Kaoru?"

Kaoru shrugged. "I guess this kidnapping really is having an effect on them. Girls do have warm hearts."

Hikaru nodded and leaned his head on his twin's shoulder.

"Our profits have suffered," added Kyouya. "I haven't seen such a drop since that week when Tamaki got mono."

"It was not mono," put in the blonde. "Just glandular fever."

"That _is_ mono," pointed out Haruhi.

"Oh."

"And we know where you got it, Tono," grinned the twins, looking pointedly at Kyouya.

"Look," interrupted the Shadow King before Tamaki could retort. "The point is, Hikaru's right."

Haruhi blinked. "You _did_ give Tamaki mono?"

Kyouya glared. "No. Our profits are down and it's because all the girls are worried. We need to do something about this."

Haruhi frowned. "You can't blame the girls for being scared that something might happen to them. Aren't any of you at least a little bit concerned?"

The members of the host club all exchanged glances.

"They wouldn't dare," responded Kyouya in a low voice. "The Ohtori secret police are excellent at their job and it's not a secret that anyone who tried anything would end up regretting it."

The twins nodded. "We would get away," they announced in unison.

"And Takashi and I would see off any kidnappers!" chimed in Hunny, Mori nodding once in agreement.

"My father is also tightening security," added Tamaki, "for both our family and the school. Nothing like this will happen again, at least if he can help it."

Haruhi was about to reply when all of them heard, from somewhere on the floor below, a shouting. Exchanging more looks, they stood and headed for the door. The sound was louder out here, the shouts echoing through the corridors and off the walls, floors and ceilings. It was a girl's voice, high and shrill with fear, and she was clearly running around, frantic.

"He's struck again!" she shrieked. "He's struck again! Oh someone help! Someone, please..."

Alarmed, the hosts all ran with pounding hearts towards the voice, finding the girl in a corridor outside a boys' toilet. When she looked up and saw the group, she burst into tears and fell to her knees.

Haruhi went towards her and took her hand. "It's Yumiko Noda, isn't it?" she asked, recognising her from host club.

The girl – Yumiko – nodded.

"What's happened?" Haruhi asked.

"It's... the k-kidnapper," replied Yumiko between sobs. "He's... he's... t-taken someone else!"

---

Taku Ogawa was trembling all over. His heart was racing and he was blinking in the dark, trying to see something – anything! What the hell was going on? One minute he had been in the library, looking for his pen. He had been sure he had left it somewhere around that table... Then he blinked and suddenly he was here.

He wanted to get back! He had work to do... And he and Yumiko were going out again tonight...

He was pulled out of his thoughts when a cold, high voice close behind him, said, "Another one... Aren't we the lucky ones?"

Taku was about to turn around and demand answers from the chilling voice when he heard another one. "Specimen forty-seven."

He had scarcely any time to ponder the meaning of this when pain burned suddenly and fiercely through his stomach. He fell, bleeding, to the floor and knew that he would never see Yumiko again.


End file.
